


Europride 2008

by wisdomeagle



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alcohol, Community: maleslashminis, Invisible Third, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Post-Canon, Pride Festival, Queer Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-05
Updated: 2008-10-05
Packaged: 2017-10-26 00:08:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/276370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wisdomeagle/pseuds/wisdomeagle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The summer of 2008, just one lucky coincidence after another.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Europride 2008

**Author's Note:**

  * For [katrinatoc](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=katrinatoc).



> Requested story elements: Stockholm Syndrome, teaching, and happiness.

They're not Pride kind of people. For Willow it's a boomerang thing, because for years after she came out she was very much a Pride person, marched with Wiccan groups and later with Kennedy and other Dykes on Bikes. Willow's done Pride in more countries than most people have even visited, but by 2008, five years after -- _after_ \-- when it's coming up on a decade for Will and, well, not quite as long for him, they don't bother with following every rainbow flag to its pot of fool's gold. If there are Slayers in a Pride Parade, sure, they'll flag them down before wee teenage girls with superpowers knee protesting fundamentalists in their tiny, tiny balls, but as a rule he and Will spend their Julys with no other queer people but themselves.

"To coming out," says Willow, and takes a sip of pink booze.

"To gay sex," Xander adds.

"To friendship," says Willow, and she snuggles against him in a way that would have been uncomfortable a long time ago but is now just familiar. He's almost drowsing when Willow says, "It's nice that we could be here."

Their hotel room is the finest Council money could buy, which means it sucks. There's something dreary, too, about being _here_ and knowing that people are boozing and fucking and being very, very _gay_ , and they're holed up in a hotel room waiting for a call from a fifty-three year old ex-librarian, telling them what backwaters they'll be visiting next.

"I mean," Willow says after an uncomfortable pause (clearly realizing that Xander's not feeling the Stockholm love that she is), "here for Europride. It's very... _European_. Queers from all over. Not to mention lots of hot Nordic chicks, and, you know, the booze is good, and --"

"What's really up?" With Willow, something's always up, some dyke drama or witchy disaster. Things get worse and worse and Willow's never learned her lesson, never gotten help before it was too late.

Willow's nose scrunches; she backs away from the scary conversation. "Just -- nothing. Too bad the demonologist didn't work out."

"Yeah. I don't get how they can be so smart and yet so dumb with the summoning of demons."

"Right, cos, summoning demons, we'd never do that."

"Touché. Still, it was kind of a waste, coming here, when --"

"Yeah."

And it occurs to Xander that you can be out and lying at the same time. He doesn't know what Willow's hiding -- maybe he'll never know; there've been a lot of secrets between them in three decades of friendship -- but he knows his hiding places, his secrets. Tonight will be an Ethan night.

When he says, they're not Pride people, he doesn't mean Willow. Because sure, she's wearing the faux-irony _now_ , but give her time to heal from a too-flowery coming-of-age and she'll be marching again. Ethan never will, and so when Xander says, they're not Pride people, he means that he and Ethan will never broadcast their love with a seventy-man band and a white-tie wedding.

Because he and Ethan aren't in love, and he's not exactly proud of what will happen tonight.

It's not exactly shameful, though, when Willow settles into one of the twin beds to sleep the sleep of the drunk and Xander heads out and calls Ethan from a payphone and tells him he's in town for Europride (because it's none of Ethan's business what demonologists the Council does or doesn't do business with and he doesn't want _Ethan_ doing business with this one, ever at all) and does he want to fuck.

There's never a time when Ethan doesn't want to fuck (fuck around, fuck things up, keep Xander fucking coming back to him), so half an hour later Xander's in Ethan's flat, pinned to the wall by Ethan's surprisingly muscular arms, trying to figure out how to breathe without giving up the penetration of the kiss.

Xander -- well, part of him -- no, all of him -- well, the biggest part, -- anyhow the most _demanding_ part -- wants tonight to be an escape from everything that being with Willow is. Because being with Willow is being professional _and_ personal, all the time, never forgetting they've got a job to do, that the world hangs in balance. Never forgetting that they've got so much history and baggage that it follows them around like Rincewind's Luggage, never leaving them in peace. Xander loves Willow. He doesn't love Ethan -- he can't; it would break too many rules -- and that's why this is better.

They're just kissing. If "just" can be applied to any situation where Ethan's whole body is straining to push Xander's into the whitewashed wall, when erections are trying to escape from jeans and when Ethan's tongue has a distinct personality, more playful than Ethan's own and more dangerous. If all they ever did was kiss it would be problematic enough; the way things stand --

"You're thinking too hard. Hm. How can we fix that?" Ethan's already in the liquor cabinet before Xander can say _can we talk?_ Of course they can't _talk_. They tease, and torment, and sometimes yell, but they have nothing to talk about. Instead they'll drink.

Xander says, "Willow's in town," and Ethan says, "Willow's the red-head?" and then his eyes widen; he's remembered her.

"You'll keep away from her," Xander tells him.

Ethan holds up his hands in surrender before pouring them both healthy sips of Scotch. "If you insist."

"Yeah, believe me, I insist."

Ethan shakes his head. "Did Ripper teach you to be so nasty?"

"This is good Scotch."

"Ripper teach you that too?"

"We agreed we wouldn't mention him."

"Because it would be indelicate? Xander, we've been fucking for eighteen months. There's nothing left to be delicate _about_. Did Ripper teach you to drink?"

"Nah. I was homeschooled."

Ethan snickers.

Sitting in Ethan's weather-beaten leather armchair, drinking Scotch and pretending that neither of them were ever in love with Giles, discussing the comparative prettiness of the native Swedes and the newly out Italian boys who're Priding for the first time -- usually this would be numbing, but tonight it's not -- tonight it's what he wants, to be somewhere lackadaisically lived-in, with someone who's summoned demons in his day and lived to lounge another evening. To be with someone who's got so many secrets and told so many lies that he's practically transparent, someone who knows all his dirty secrets and doesn't care about his clean ones. There's something cleansing about Ethan's version of Stockholm, so unwholesome that it's practically hygenic, killing all the diseases it breeds.

Xander downs the last of his Scotch and sloppily toasts Ethan with his empty glass. "To bed with us?"

Ethan leaves his drink unfinished.


End file.
